The swooning, romantic period drama, Bright Star, chronicles the three-year romance between revered Romantic poet John Keats and young Fanny Brawne, cut short due to Keats’s death at the age of 25. The ably gifted director and writer, Jane Campion (The Piano), has crafted her most moving film to date. Her acute eye for detail of her characters’ surroundings and her ability to capture the smallest of gestures and glances, culminate to add a tangible quality to a genre commonly associated with tentativeness.
Campion was inspired to tell their story upon coming across Keats’s love letters to Brawne, and his short poem, Bright Star, which many scholars believe is based on their chaste love affair. For Campion, the film marks a departure from the underrated, sexually charged thriller, In the Cut, and a return to the period genre that garnered the New Zealand born director a large following. What Campion has always displayed – whatever the period – is an intense fascination with her lead heroines and an ability to make them thrillingly alive. She conveys this through a passionately intimate approach, chronicling emotional travails without reserve. Bright Star is no exception. (more…)
Picture from www.screendaily.com of a scene in Enter the Void
Lars Von Trier. Park Chan-wook. Michael Haneke. These three auteurs are masters whose works are defined by their distinctive approach to divisive subject matter. France’s Gaspar Noe hinted at soon joining the rank with his first feature, Irreversible. Told in a real-time backwards narrative, the film is infamous for an unflinching nine-minute rape sequence featured in the film’s first half.
Yet as the film unraveled itself, it presented a dilemma. Juxtaposed against the abhorrent sequence were intimate and deeply humane scenes at the end of the film that left a solemn and thoughtful tone on the horror that had transpired. The film was akin to a slap in the face, but there was no denying the boldness of the work and Noe’s grim yet exhilarating vision.
In Noe’s latest venture, Enter the Void, he audaciously tells a three-hour story of life after death with all the visual panache he employed in Irreversible. But while he’s still out to enrage and provoke, there appears to be no sincerity behind the whole endeavor. He’s forsaken any resemblance to narrative for fancy shock tactics.
Noe begins his tale from the eyes of Oscar, a young, wayward American drug dealer working in neon-drenched Tokyo. Oscar takes one last trip (in hallucinatory CGI) before ultimately meeting his death in a bar. From there on, Noe flexes his visionary muscle by having the camera act as a voyeur, peering in on Tokyo from above, sweeping across streets and people in Oscar’s life. The camera is Oscar, on a final hallucinatory trip after death.
Essentially there is no plot to the film. Noe seems intent rather to simulate an experiential state of the afterlife. To do so, his camera ruthlessly cranes in and out of light fixtures, peepholes and in one sequence sure to divide audiences, an aborted fetus. The climax in a celestial brothel that features an orgy of un-simulated sex fulfills the requisite shock value of a Noe feature, but unlike in Irreversible, it seems included merely to titillate than to serve any overarching purpose.
Which leads to the inherent problem with Enter the Void. Whatever point Noe is trying to make about life, death and the afterlife is lost within the plethora of repugnant images and special effects. Noe’s tricks cannot mask what is essentially an offensive, interminable, masochistic, self-conscious slog of a movie.
In the next three years, over 100 comic book movies are expected to come into existence (see the list here). Obviously this whole comic book-turned-movie thing is kind of a big deal, so I decided to get in touch with the times.
As an X-Men (and Hugh Jackman) fanatic, I saw Wolverine almost immediately, but Iron Man took me a bit longer to see. To be honest, I thought it looked dumb, but boy was I wrong.
Robert Downy Jr. blew me away for the first time in, well, a while. There’s a reason many people call this his comeback movie. And what a comeback it was. Not only was he able to show off his drool-worthy body, but his acting skills were pretty up there too. (more…)
Employing a similar intimate, non-fussy approach that marked her first feature, Red Road, director Andrea Arnold elevates that approach to new emotional heights in Fish Tank, a film set amid the crumbling suburbs of Essex, England.
still photo from Fish Tank from www.filmofilia.com
Newcomer Katie Jarvis plays Mia, a foul-mouthed 15 year-old with aspirations to become a hip-hop dancer despite her dire predicaments at home. Mia is the type to start fights with girls on the street, simply to amuse herself and let off her pent up aggression. When her mother brings home an attractive new boyfriend, Mia starts to exhibit sexual tendencies toward men, opening up a whole can of worms her mother is not fit and ready to cope with.
Red Road was a slow burn of a movie with a corker of an ending. Fish Tank is similar in that Arnold keeps the viewer engaged without revealing what she’s really getting at. But while Red Road established itself as a sexually charged mystery from the outset, Fish Tank’s seemingly random narrative causes the surprises to sneak up unexpected. The detours in Arnold’s tale are in no way manipulative but feel like a natural progression of Mia’s dangerous tendencies.
In Mia, Arnold and Jarvis have created a character that elicits compassion even what at her most self-destructive. She is vulnerable when it comes to first love but is too proud to show it. Arnold makes a clear case that her surroundings have made Mia who she is. But throughout the course of her journey, Mia grows and begins to see the bigger picture. Arnold conveys this in a remarkably unsentimental way that speaks volumes to her fierce command as a director. Fish Tank does not beg for tears through clichés, it elicits them through a frank observation at real life.
Ridley Scott and Jordan Scott from fashionmagazine.com at Cracks Premiere at TIFF
[This is Nigel Smith's first movie review from the Toronto International Film Festival. You can read about his experience overall at jerkmagazine.net.]
Director Jordan Scott has both pros and cons working against her for her first feature length film, Cracks. On the plus side, Scott is daughter to visionary director Ridley Scott, who also footed a portion of the bill for the production’s costs through his production company Scott Free.
But with prestigious roots comes closer scrutiny and higher expectations among critics and industry watchdogs. The fact Scott (the daughter) manages to evade a disaster and churn out a thoroughly engaging film is a hopeful sign for a long career to come.
Set in an elite boarding school in 1930’s England, Cracks is a simmering Gothic tale centered on teacher Miss G’s (Eva Green) close relationship with her young female students. Unlike the stuffy headmistresses that keep a tight rein on the girls, Miss G is portrayed by Green as a modern woman, intent on letting the girls come into their own without reservation.
But from the first frames an insidious tone is set through Miss G’s peering stares and unnerving sense of possession. The girls seem blind to her undisclosed intentions, but a new Spanish student, Fiamma, sees right through her, throwing Miss G off kilter.
Eva Green in Cracks from www.dailymail.co.uk
For her first feature Scott shows admirable skill in setting mood and tone. The lush vistas surrounding the boarding school are breathtaking yet ominous. Through a foreboding score and measured pace established by Scott, the intents of Miss G are never spelled out, in an effort to keep the pervading mystery of the plot intact.
Scott sidesteps slightly in sequences where she employs excessive slow-mo, allowing the visuals to detract from an otherwise engrossing narrative. Thankfully her nimble young cast and Green’s seductive performance more than make up for the showy antics that get the best of Scott.
Bromance. The word in itself epitomizes our obsession as a society to combine words such as bootylicious, sexting, ginormous, Brangelina, and so many more.
Once there was the hip, catchy name, there was no stopping bromances from spreading like wildfire. What started out as a faint whisper following male-on-male hugs, has become a cultural phenomenon, spreading to an MTV reality show, a holiday (Bromance Day just happens to be six months after Valentine’s Day) and a movie entitled I Love You, Man.
Like these two, Peter and Sydney were not shy about their feelings for each other
According to urbandictionary.com, a bromance “describes the complicated love and affection shared by two straight males.” While some men may be ashamed of their bromance, Paul Rudd and Jason Segel embrace their characters’ uber close relationship. From “slapping the base” to walking the dog, those two did everything together, including professing their undying love for each other. (more…)
The reason I am in college...and one of Yahoo! Movies' top 100
Recently, Yahoo! Movies produced a list of movies entitled 100 Movies To See Before You Die. As a self-proclaimed movie fanatic, I am truly embarrassed to report that I have only seen 21 of them.
I know, I know, it sounds terrible, but I have an explanation. I was not born into a family of movie lovers.
In fact, whenever I would watch a movie more than once, my dad would come into the room and say “Haven’t we seen this?” Yes dad, we have. Several times in fact, but as a budding movie lover, I never let that stop me.
I mean, what if Beethoven stopped playing the piano after his parents said “Haven’t we heard this?” We would not have the enchanting music of one of the most famous composers of all time, and you, my friends, would not have this blog.
However, it means that I never got a chance to watch some of the classics that debuted before my time such as Annie Hall, Apocalypse Now, Casablanca, and apparently, many, many more. (more…)
one of the many badass quotes from Rorschach's journal
I have always loved superheroes. There is just something about believing in people that can fly and see through walls and have tons of other superhuman powers that can fuel my imagination enough to keep me daydreaming through entire classes.
Today in Spanish I decided that if had one power I would want it to be the ability to control time. Not only would I be able to fast-forward through my classes, but I would always get enough sleep and spring break would be a hell of a lot longer.
The Crew
What got me on the subject of superheroes is the movie Watchmen. The movie started off sort of like The Incredibles, where vigilante activities have been outlawed and superheroes are forced to live normal lives and neglect their powers.
But then it turned dark, and in a surprisingly good way. (more…)
Last week I discussed He’s Just Not That into You, a movie that turned out to be the typical fairytale that never seems to come true, so this week I decided to pick a movie on the opposite end of the spectrum: The Break-Up.
It’s funny how this movie can be seen so differently by guys and girls. All of my guy friends seem to love it and if you ask them why, they all have the same answer: “Vince Vaughn is the man.” And indeed, that gentle giant is the sole reason I have watched some movies and he made the it enjoyable until the end, but even he can’t salvage a crappy ending.
OBAMA. Check out what we have for you from our movie department today at JERK. Alex Rabinowitz offers an in-depth review of Kevin Smith’s highly anticipated new film Zack and Miri Make a Porno featuring the likes of Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, and Jason Mewes. Mike Estabrook’s column concerns something we American movie-goers often overlook – foreign films. Check out his article on the French film The Class.
Read on for a funny video featuring Zack and Miri Make a Porno Director Kevin Smith.
